Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Sequential learning (SL) refers to the ability to learn thetemporal and ordinal patterns of one’s environment. Whereasresearch on the learning of ordinal patterns is common, thelearning of temporal patterns within sequential events hasbeen far less studied. The current study examines the effectsof synchronous and asynchronous temporal patterns on visualsequential learning. We hypothesize that entrainment (i.e.exposure to a regular rhythmic pattern) allows for betterprocessing of the ordinal structure of sequential events.Twenty healthy adult participants (11 females, 18–34 yearsold) performed two versions of a visual sequential learningparadigm while event-related potentials (ERPs) wererecorded. The SL task involved the visual presentation ofcolored circles, wherein a target circle was embedded thatwas partially predictable based on preceding predictorstimuli. One version of the task incorporated synchronoustemporal presentation of the stimuli whereas the other versioninvolved asynchronous presentation of stimuli using arandomized ISI on every trial. Reaction time datademonstrated that learning occurred in both temporalconditions. On the other hand, the mean ERP amplitudesbetween 350 and 750ms post-predictor onset in the posteriorregions of interest revealed that learning of the statisticalcontingencies between stimuli was disrupted for theasynchronous temporal condition but intact for thesynchronous condition. These neurophysiological datasuggest that the brain processes regular and irregular timingevents differently, with statistical learning of ordinal visualpatterns being improved by a synchronous temporal structure,possibly a result of heightened attention to the stimuli due toentrainment.